Hotmail blocked

I would be grateful if anyone could help me sort out my problems with
Hotmail. It seems my account has been blocked, for no specified reason.
All the solutions offered involve messages being sent to my Hotmail account,
which of course has been blocked. There is no direct way of contacting
Hotmail operations to ask a question - only pre-sets which don't address my
problem. I have been led round in circles by a system which seems to have
been designed by idiots especially in order to prevent users finding
solutions. Does anyone know of a way of getting direct help on this, or
should I just give up and go to Yahoo?
Thanks
Stuart

On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:40:11 +0100, "Stuart Falconer"
wrote:

I would be grateful if anyone could help me sort out my problems with
Hotmail. It seems my account has been blocked, for no specified reason.
All the solutions offered involve messages being sent to my Hotmail account,
which of course has been blocked. There is no direct way of contacting
Hotmail operations to ask a question - only pre-sets which don't address my
problem. I have been led round in circles by a system which seems to have
been designed by idiots especially in order to prevent users finding
solutions. Does anyone know of a way of getting direct help on this, or
should I just give up and go to Yahoo?

A solution, if there is one, probably depends on what "blocked" means.
Which email client are you using and what error message(s) are you
seeing?

Stuart Falconer wrote:

I would be grateful if anyone could help me sort out my problems with
Hotmail. It seems my account has been blocked, for no specified
reason.

And what does "blocked" mean?
- You cannot login?
- You can login but cannot send out e-mails from that Hotmail account?
- You can login and send but your e-mails don't get delivered?
- You send an e-mail from that account but get back an NDR (non-delivery
report)?

So, how do YOU know that your account is "blocked"?

How many e-mails have you sent out per days? To be more correct, to how
many *recipients* have you sent e-mails per day (or the day before your
account got "blocked" which presumably means it is locked to prevent
further use in sending outbound e-mails)?

The free accounts have limits. In the past, if you log into your
account using a local e-mail client (i.e., you are using the Hotmail
service by using POP or Deltasync protocols to send e-mails using your
local e-mail client) then you could send to up to 100 recipients per
day. If you used their webmail client (i.e., you use HTTP via a web
browser to use their webmail pages) then you could send to up to 500
recipients per day. Once you exceed that quota, your account gets
locked (not blocked) for 24 hours. From the article listed below and
from what I've read elsewhere, Microsoft has changed that lockout quota
to 300 (for both POP/Deltasync and HTTP access methods) for the per-day
sending limit. The limit starts out lower for new accounts and your
quota increases over time with as you gain credibility in use of their
system (i.e., as your reputation goes up then so does your sending
limit). That sending limit is based on the total recipient count, not
on the number of e-mails. If you send 30 messages with 10 recipients
then you've hit the 300 recipients per day sending limit.

There are other quotas at Hotmail but they don't lock your account. For
example, you can have a max of 100 recipients per e-mail message.
Suspicious activity on an account can temporarily reduce (Microsoft
doesn't say for how long) that max recipient quota down to just 10
recipients per message. Trying to add more than that results in
rejection of your e-mail. I've read you can have up to 200 attachments
per e-mail with a max for each of 25MB (50MB for a Plus account) which
means the message could be around 5-10GB in size - but you'll find many
recipients whose accounts won't let them accept e-mails over 10-20MB in
size. Besides sending limits, there are also rate limits (i.e., how
many messages you can send per hour) but I don't know what they are.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...-sending-email
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...ly-blocked-faq

Even if you claim that you don't spam or otherwise abuse or exceed their
sending and rate limits, maybe someone hacked your account and is using
it to send their spam from there. Maybe you should change the password
on your account and make sure you use a STRONG password. Also change
any security questions or whatever they prompt for regarding information
when using their "Forgot Password" procedure. If your account got
compromized then the hacker knows that info, too, and may have even
changed it.

The above quotas are enforced on free *personal-use* accounts. If you
PAY for Hotmail Plus service then the quotas probably go up. I say
probably because I could not find Microsoft detailing just exactly what
you get with a Plus subscription other than the little described at
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/hotmail/hotmail-plus. Other than
attachments go from 25MB to 50MB max size, the removal of ads on their
web pages (not an issue if you're using a local e-mail client), and
larger disk space (assuming you leave it stored on their server rather
than use a local e-mail client to store it locally), they don't really
tell you what else, like quotas, are enlarged with their paid service.
I think it costs $20/year to get their Plus subscription.

should I just give up and go to Yahoo?

They have sending and rate limits, too. They won't let you abuse their
[free] service, either.

I am not using a mail client. What happens is that I log in via the Hotmail
web site, give my user name and password, and the next page comes up to tell
me that my account has been "blocked." That is as far as I can get. The
page informs me that my account may have been abused by someone, which might
mean I have been hacked, since I have sent nothing which might be deemed
offensive. Nor have I done any multiple posting. I cannot get access to my
inbox. In fact I have only ever used this account for a few personal
messages. It is a complete mystery to me what has happened.
Thanks for responding.
Stuart

"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...
Stuart Falconer wrote:

I would be grateful if anyone could help me sort out my problems with
Hotmail. It seems my account has been blocked, for no specified
reason.

And what does "blocked" mean?
- You cannot login?
- You can login but cannot send out e-mails from that Hotmail account?
- You can login and send but your e-mails don't get delivered?
- You send an e-mail from that account but get back an NDR (non-delivery
report)?

So, how do YOU know that your account is "blocked"?

How many e-mails have you sent out per days? To be more correct, to how
many *recipients* have you sent e-mails per day (or the day before your
account got "blocked" which presumably means it is locked to prevent
further use in sending outbound e-mails)?

The free accounts have limits. In the past, if you log into your
account using a local e-mail client (i.e., you are using the Hotmail
service by using POP or Deltasync protocols to send e-mails using your
local e-mail client) then you could send to up to 100 recipients per
day. If you used their webmail client (i.e., you use HTTP via a web
browser to use their webmail pages) then you could send to up to 500
recipients per day. Once you exceed that quota, your account gets
locked (not blocked) for 24 hours. From the article listed below and
from what I've read elsewhere, Microsoft has changed that lockout quota
to 300 (for both POP/Deltasync and HTTP access methods) for the per-day
sending limit. The limit starts out lower for new accounts and your
quota increases over time with as you gain credibility in use of their
system (i.e., as your reputation goes up then so does your sending
limit). That sending limit is based on the total recipient count, not
on the number of e-mails. If you send 30 messages with 10 recipients
then you've hit the 300 recipients per day sending limit.

There are other quotas at Hotmail but they don't lock your account. For
example, you can have a max of 100 recipients per e-mail message.
Suspicious activity on an account can temporarily reduce (Microsoft
doesn't say for how long) that max recipient quota down to just 10
recipients per message. Trying to add more than that results in
rejection of your e-mail. I've read you can have up to 200 attachments
per e-mail with a max for each of 25MB (50MB for a Plus account) which
means the message could be around 5-10GB in size - but you'll find many
recipients whose accounts won't let them accept e-mails over 10-20MB in
size. Besides sending limits, there are also rate limits (i.e., how
many messages you can send per hour) but I don't know what they are.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...-sending-email
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...ly-blocked-faq

Even if you claim that you don't spam or otherwise abuse or exceed their
sending and rate limits, maybe someone hacked your account and is using
it to send their spam from there. Maybe you should change the password
on your account and make sure you use a STRONG password. Also change
any security questions or whatever they prompt for regarding information
when using their "Forgot Password" procedure. If your account got
compromized then the hacker knows that info, too, and may have even
changed it.

The above quotas are enforced on free *personal-use* accounts. If you
PAY for Hotmail Plus service then the quotas probably go up. I say
probably because I could not find Microsoft detailing just exactly what
you get with a Plus subscription other than the little described at
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/hotmail/hotmail-plus. Other than
attachments go from 25MB to 50MB max size, the removal of ads on their
web pages (not an issue if you're using a local e-mail client), and
larger disk space (assuming you leave it stored on their server rather
than use a local e-mail client to store it locally), they don't really
tell you what else, like quotas, are enlarged with their paid service.
I think it costs $20/year to get their Plus subscription.

should I just give up and go to Yahoo?

They have sending and rate limits, too. They won't let you abuse their
[free] service, either.

Stuart Falconer wrote:

I am not using a mail client. What happens is that I log in via the Hotmail
web site, give my user name and password, and the next page comes up to tell
me that my account has been "blocked." That is as far as I can get. The
page informs me that my account may have been abused by someone, which might
mean I have been hacked, since I have sent nothing which might be deemed
offensive. Nor have I done any multiple posting. I cannot get access to my
inbox. In fact I have only ever used this account for a few personal
messages. It is a complete mystery to me what has happened.

Have you waiting for longer than 24 hours for the lockout to get
removed? I believe that is the length of the lockout.

If your account got hacked (likely because of using a weak password or
using the same password at every site so a malicious site would know
your login credentials everywhere else) then it may have been abused by
a spammer. You can only hope that they don't continually attempt to
abuse the account so you get a chance the account gets unlocked to get
in and change your password to a STRONG password. Plus you need to
change the security questions or whatever information is asked by their
"Forgot Password" procedure to ensure the hacker doesn't get back into
your account. Once in, they'll know what is that info to give the
forgot password wizard or they changed it to something they will
remember. When you get in, change to a STRONG password and change the
info used by the Forgot Password wizard.

You might also want to scan your own host for malware, like keyloggers,
using anti-virus or other security software.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...ly-blocked-faq

What is stupid here is that Microsoft thinks everyone using their e-mail
service will have a cell phone or that they want to divulge it to
Microsoft.

Stuart Falconer wrote:

Many thanks for this response. Unfortunately all my attempts to get
access, via the forums or anything like that, fail at the point where
I have to enter my ID and password. Every time I try this I am
simply referred back to the original page telling me my account is
blocked. I am giving up.

If you think your account has been compromised by a hacker or spammer,
why not ask Hotmail to check it out?

- Go to:
www.hotmail.com
- Click on "Help Center" at the bottom of the page.
- Search on "account hacked".
- First article in results:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/h...ed-account-faq
- Click the link to "reset your password".
- Select "I think someone else is using my Windows Live ID" option.
- Click on the "Reset my password" link and go through their wizard.
You will need to know what security question and answer you elected
when you last configured your account.

You have yet to note that you attempted to reset your password. You
have to note that you visited their forum(s) and asked a moderator to
reset your account's password. Since you are giving up without much of
a fight and because you noted that you rarely use this account (which
also makes it look like it is a free account), it is easier to you in
your mindset to abandon the account and create another freebie one.

So did you store any contact info in your Hotmail account? If so, all
your contacts are going to get afflicted with spam/phish e-mails. Not
trying to recover the compromised account means (only if the hacker is
using your account to send spam) that YOU will continue to be identified
as the spammer. Fight or flee. Looks like you chose to flee.

Make sure to use a STRONG password for your new freebie account.